Paint store owner Laura Meehan must prove her amateur sleuthing skills (again!) when her small townʼs public library starts burning in this installment of the Haunted Paint Store cozy mystery series.
Donʼt mess with a paint store ownerʼs safe haven!
Laura Meehan has her hands full with her paint store, but also with another case (that she will definitely leave to the police to solve)! The Sea Breeze Public Library is burning and itʼs clear from the beginning that it must be arson. Who would want to burn a library down and why? Was it a group of moms protesting what they see as inappropriate book content? Maybe it was someone who didnʼt like a title they lent? Or is there something more alarming going on?
As a library volunteer, Laura simply has to find out, and together with her IT-savvy husband Roy and her ex-detective fatherʼs ghost (real or imagined still yet to be determined), she stumbles upon a lot of obstacles on her quest to find the truth—and maybe even an arsonist who might strike again!
E.J. Copperman is the nom de plume for Jeff Cohen, writer of intentionally funny murder mysteries. As E.J., he has written the Haunted Guesthouse and Agent to the Paws series, as well as the Jersey Girl Legal Mysteries, the Fran & Ken Stein Mysteries, and the new Haunted Paint Store Mysteries; as Jeff, he has written the Double Feature and Aaron Tucker series; and he collaborated with himself on the Samuel Hoenig Aspergerʼs Mysteries.
A New Jersey native, E.J. worked as a newspaper reporter, teacher, magazine editor, and screenwriter before his first book was published to critical acclaim in 2002. In his spare time, Jeff is an extremely amateur guitar player, a fan of Major League Baseball, a couch potato, and a crossword addict.
My thoughts: This was a fun mystery caper with the added twist of Laura’s dad haunting the family business and offering her his advice as a former cop.
The local library may not be big and fancy, but to Laura and the other patrons, it’s important, whether they’re locals or holiday makers needing something to read, the library acts as a safe haven and a community hub (I am very pro-library FYI as a former librarian and lifelong reader). Laura volunteers there once a week as a break from running her paint shop.
When someone starts a fire in the teen section, for some reason the main suspect isn’t the crazy woman trying to stop the library stocking “pornography” in the children’s and teens section (bet I can guess what she really means….), but the head librarian. Which for Laura, just doesn’t make sense. Except that Evelyn the librarian has disappeared.
So, armed with absolutely no alternate suspects, or investigative powers, Laura and ever loyal husband Roy are on the case. Her dad provides his two cents from the afterlife, only Laura can see him, and her therapist thinks he’s imaginary, but he does have actual experience and knowledge.
Driving the town’s one detective crazy, and upsetting the arson detective, several residents and the librarian, Laura is determined to get to the bottom of it. But will she do a better job than the actual cops?
Fun, funny and entertaining to read, I really liked Laura, her golden retriever husband and her ghost dad. They make a surprisingly good team. She’s got her heart in the right place, but tends to just charge ahead not really thinking about how her actions affect others or how she might actually be muddying the waters for the police. She does get results, but not in the way you might suspect and if she’s not careful, the four customers she does have might eventually be none, causing too much upset can make you unpopular! But hopefully not as her adventures are enjoyable to read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
